Upfront week is officially over.
AdExchanger Senior Editor Alyssa Boyle and Associate Editor Victoria McNally bounced all around New York City to catch eight upfront events hosted by major media companies and streamers: NBCUniversal, Fox, Amazon, TelevisaUnivision, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix and YouTube. (We’re not tired, you are.)
In case you missed any of the dog-and-pony shows — including Chappell Roan belting out “Pink Pony Club” during YouTube’s Brandcast — don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
If you need one word to sum up the upfronts, here you go: performance.
But if you want to go a little deeper, check out our snackable recap videos for Day One, Day Two and Day Three, as well as our conversation during this week’s episode of The Big Story podcast.
And if you still haven’t had your fill, zoom in with our on-the-ground reporting.
NBCUniversal: NBCU used its upfront event to peacock its strides in outcomes-based measurement. Its new Performance Insights Hub will fully roll out this year to provide buyers with access to a long list of outcomes-based measurement and data providers. NBCU also flexed its ad precision muscles by reminding buyers it has a platform to help them retarget viewers on linear TV to drive — you guessed it — outcomes.
Fox: Fox sandwiched a rehash of its Tubi NewFront between not-so-humble brags about its audience engagement alongside celebrity appearances by TV personalities Gordon Ramsay and Michael Imperioli, who played Chrissy in “The Sopranos.” Fox execs assured media buyers in the room that its content is pulling in more Gen Z viewers who are particularly engaged. And engagement leads to, of course, ad performance.
Amazon: The ecommerce behemoth has arguably the clearest path to proving video ad performance — it quite literally runs an online shopping hub and a streaming service underpinned by the same audience and identity graph. But to stand out from every other media company bragging about performance, Amazon also spent a ton of time touting its growing live sports portfolio, including “Thursday Night Football.”
TelevisaUnivision: TelevisaUnivision highlighted data quality as one of its strong suits, addressing the historical difficulty third-party measurement providers have had getting Hispanic audience measurement right.
TelevisaUnivision made the argument that its culturally relevant content paired with its ability to reach and engage with the vast majority of US Hispanics makes it best equipped to deliver the performance media buyers want.
Disney: The Mouse House focused on its talent and IP, especially sports. Case in point: Disney bragged about next year’s Super Bowl airing on ESPN, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell even made an appearance. Turning to tech and data, Disney emphasized its AI-driven advertising capabilities that lead to – you guessed it – better performance.
Warner Bros. Discovery: After addressing the planned merger with Paramount Skydance (or, rather, addressing the “Ellison” in the room), WBD execs showed off ad tech products both old and new. WBD launched a measurement and attribution dashboard with a myriad of (unnamed) data and measurement partners, and gave a shoutout to its existing ad platform NEO and its linear-focused tool DemoDirect.
Netflix: Netflix went deep into the ad tech weeds during its upfront (comparatively speaking) by highlighting its targeting and measurement capabilities that include local geo-based campaigns as well as new programmatic integrations with Amazon and Yahoo. The best part, though, was comedian Michelle Buteau leading a staged Jeopardy game with other comedians (including Eric André and Hasan Minhaj) that poked fun at their inability to define a data clean room — a not-so-subtle-but-very-funny reminder for media buyers that Netflix can do the same fancy data matching as everybody else.
YouTube: Last but not least, YouTube closed out upfront week. YouTube was the most unique in its positioning of performance, asserting that it shouldn’t come at the expense of reach and relevance. YouTube also stood out by offering media buyers a stellar performance by pop culture icon Chappell Roan.
Andddddd, that’s a wrap!
We’ll see you next week in Las Vegas at Programmatic AI.
